Refinishing Hardwood: Sealant is potent

Sanding is the hard part of refinishing. It's time consuming and makes your skin really dry. Sealing wood, on the other hand, will put your nose into shock. Make sure that you open all of the windows and have a fan on hand when you are putting down sealant. It might even be useful to wear a mask.

After putting on the sealant, I used put on three coats of polyurethane varnish using a varnish brush. I recommend 4 coats of varnish though.
Here's the result of hard work

Refinishing Hardwood Floors: Getting Water Stains Out of Hardwood IS Possible

I was really discouraged when I removed the varnish and there was a huge, dark water stain in the middle of the living room floor. It was at least 2ft by 2ft. I checked with a variety of people who all believed I would have to tear up that hardwood and lay new in order for there not to be a stain. So, I did what any Generation Y-er would do and I googled it. Finding a solution wasn't that easy. The results said to use "oxalic acid crystals (available at paint or hardware stores)" or bleach. Well, bleach doesn't work... so I went on the search for oxalic acid crystals... that don't exist!
I ended up asking the workers at Home Depot if they knew of ways to repair the wood. They, too, were at a loss. But one worker recommended that I consult the carpet and flooring place just behind their store. When I got there and asked, I received a look of pity ("Sad, poor girl has a stain in her hardwood.") followed by a look of confusion ("What in the world are oxalic acid crystals?"). The manager decided to answer the question that had plagued us and he googled oxalic acid crystals. Apparently they are used to whiten teeth "like hydrogen peroxide." He apologized for not knowing a way for me to get the stain up, but little did he know a light bulb went off... "Why not try hydrogen peroxide? What do I have to lose?"

After quick stop at CVS to get a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide... I poured some onto a rag and placed it on a small section of the stain, weighted it down with a container, and left it for an hour or so. It took a little while to dry, but amazingly the dark water stain was gone from the spot! It was the happiest moment of my floor sanding experience... other than being done of course.


Moral of this story: Dark water stains can be removed with hydrogen peroxide.

... A word of warning though - too much hydrogen peroxide treatment might cause the floor to slightly yellow, so be patient.


My apologies for not having before-after pictures. I'm sad I didn't take any... but take my word for it... it was an amazing transformation!

Refinishing Hardwood Floors: Getting to Natural Wood

I know it's tough to focus on the worn hardwood in the picture when the paint is so horrid, but try to draw your eyes away from the yellow and red paint that has given my home the nickname McDuplex and see the "before" pictures of the hardwood floors. I closed on the home 11 days before I needed to move in, so I got to work right away on the floors. Refinishing floors kicks up a lot of sawdust that I didn't want on my furniture and other belongings after I moved in. Can you blame me? I immediately rented a floor sander for the weekend, and sand is what I did. Luckily for me I had a friend who wanted to learn how to refinish floors. He was willing to help me remove all of the old varnish and sand the floors to the bare wood. Not only is it quicker to do projects with others than doing it all alone, but we had fun with it. We decided that the 100lb sander wasn't sufficient weight to make the sandpaper effective so took turns riding the sander to add plenty of extra weight. Keep in mind that this might compress the pad in between the sander and sandpaper too much, so it would be a good idea to get an extra thick pad or get an additional pad to switch out when you are renting the floor sander.
It took a lot of sandpaper... and 30 grit sandpaper may seem too rough for wood (40 grit for a belt sander), but it was the only paper that would remove the varnish.
Recommendations:
Get a lot of 30/40 grit sandpaper!
Other needed items for getting to bare floors are:

• a push broom (also called a shop broom)
• face masks - there are special sanding ones and you'll need plenty
  
• sanders, of course - get a belt sander and a large floor sander
• a sanding block for hand sanding the corners
• while discussing sanding by hand, I highly recommend getting work gloves
• sandpaper - as I said, lots of 30/40 grit paper, but you'll also need 60 or 80 and 120 once the varnish is gone
  
• a shop vacuum and filters
  
• rags and mop/bucket for clean up
• friends to help =)

The shoe molding in my house needed to be replaced, so I also needed hammers to pull it up. It made sanding a lot easier too. But it's up to you to assess the quality of your shoe molding and to decide whether you want to replace the shoe molding (also called quarter-round).

Every thing I read says to get goggles, but I found that they fog up so perhaps glasses are better. Otherwise your eyelashes have to do all of the work... like so:



But... After a lot of sanding, your floors will look like this:

How has owning a home changed your life?

I was asked this question less than a month after going to settlement and a week & a half after moving my stuff in. However, I still had an answer:

1. I've gotten less sleep. I spent a lot of late nights trying to get the house fixed enough to move in... mainly because of refinishing the floors, which will be a series of blog posts in the future.
2. And I've spent a lot more time at Lowe's and Home Depot.
3. I also could have added that I will learn a lot about home improvement in the next year, so I decided to become a blogger and share that knowledge.
4. Finally, I've already learned that my fingernails will be shot since I'm going to be doing a lot of sanding and cleaning... hence the name of the blog. Until my fixer-upper is repaired, I will be breaking fingernails and undoubtedly more fastener nails just as I did when I removed the shoe molding. (first helpful hint - invest in a pair of work gloves and a good pair of rubber gloves)

Welcome to my blog. I hope you will find it useful.